Friday, September 1, 2006

The "Disaster Capitalist" Nomenklatura

Here's a good and sufficient illustration of the fact that the economic system of the United State (as the wise and provocative Nicholas Strakon calls our regime)is not free market capitalism.

According to recently published census data, Virginia's Loudon County is the wealthiest jurisdiction in the country, with a median household income of $98,000. Fairfax, Howard, and Montgomery County are close behind. Taken together, these suburbs of the Imperial Capital constitute the second wealthiest community in the nation, their affluence exceeded only by San Jose/Sunnyvale/Santa Clarita California, which attracts tourists and retirees in addition to healthy agricultural and industrial economies.

What do the residents of the Imperial Suburbs produce? For the most part, nothing. They are minions of the Empire, government employees and quasi-private “contractors” whose work is purely consumptive. They are not like people who grow food or make steel, who produce something and add to the aggregate wealth of our society. The residents of these four counties, notes the Washington Post, have profited handsomely from "the enormous flow of federal money into the region through contracts for defense and homeland security work in the five years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.... The result is that the Washington area's households rank second in income only to those in San Jose, eclipsing such well-heeled places as San Francisco and the bedroom suburbs of New York."

Were we anything resembling a free market society, private producers would earn much more than government-sector consumers. But as documented by Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, the typical tax-fattened federal drone makes twice as much as his private sector counterpart:

“The Bureau of Economic Analysis released data this month [August] showing that the average compensation for the 1.8 million federal civilian workers in 2005 was $105,579 – exactly twice the average compensation paid in the US private sector, $53,289.”

Unlike productive Americans, for whom job security and retirement security are increasingly elusive (particularly in this era of “downward harmonization” of wage costs relative to China, India, and Latin America), federal parasites enjoy annual wage increases irrespective of the health of the economy. “Federal workers receive generous health benefits during work and retirement, a pension plan with inflation protection, a retirement savings plan with generous matching contributions, large disability benefits, and union protections,” notes Edwards. “They often have generous holiday and vacation schedules, flexible hours, training options, incentive awards, flexible spending accounts, and a more relaxed pace of work than private-sector workers.”

Once again, all of this is lavished on people who – in terms of adding to the tangible wealth of society – produce nothing. Their “work” consists of bleeding productive people through taxes and inflation, while slowly suffocating us through regulation.

The contrast described by Edwards summons memories of Raymond Stanz's despairing comment to Peter Venkman as they contemplated the impending end of their sinecure at Colombia University: “You don't know what it's like out there. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results.” Stanz and Venkman did all right for themselves in the private sector, after hanging out a shingle advertising their services as “Ghostbusters.” (That film, incidentally, is an under-appreciated anti-government gem: Name one other film in which the chief antagonist is an anal-retentive commissar working for the Environmental Protection Agency.)

But Stanz and Venkman were fictional characters, after all, and in reality as we're sentenced to experience it those who wind up on the FedGov's payroll have no reason to leave. As Edwards summarizes, “the federal civilian workforce has become an elite island of secure and highly paid workers, separated from the ocean of private-sector American workers who must compete in today's dynamic economy.”

That's a very carefully modulated way of describing the emergency of a feudal society in which the political elite – politicians, bureaucrats, and politically connected corporate leaders – constitute something bearing an unmistakable familial resemblance to the Soviet Nomenklatura. And it's not limited to those directly employed by the federal government; that oligarchy includes the growing number of nominally private corporate contractors whose snouts are firmly fastened to federal teats.

Like its Brezhnev-era Soviet counterpart, our Nomenklatura is actively involved in promoting “wars of national liberation” abroad. The most active element within it, however, is involved in the new field of “Disaster Capitalism,” a term coined by left-leaning investigative journalist Naomi Klein (who will soon publish a book of that title).

This expression refers to the huge and growing segment of the Leviathan devoted to Homeland Security, post-catastrophe relief, and post-war reconstruction abroad. It implicates as many federal agencies as possible, as well as the familiar assortment of corporate contractors (Halliburton, Blackwater USA, Bechtel, and that ilk). Disaster Capitalism is the official ideology of what Charles Featherstone calls “that nexus of government, planning, and contracting/consulting that is the hallmark of the way Western countries and the United Nations do business anymore, regardless of whether the are planning individual projects, aiding in disaster recovery, waging war, or attempting to promote `economic development.'”

Ventures in Disaster Capitalism depend on a steady stream of human misery, whether as a result of acts of God (hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes) or acts of State, such as wars – which tend to be much more destructive than natural catastrophes. While both kinds of tragedy can be profitable, wars are much easier to arrange than natural disasters.

Talk about moral hazard: The same people who provide the relief are the ones who can arrange the misery. This is a perfect illustration of the arrangement described by Isabel Patterson in her 1943 essay “The Humanitarian with the Guillotine”: Statist humanitarians need people to be needy, and will do what they can to ensure an abundance of need, which is why they will eventually set up the guillotine to deal with those who resist being helped. “The humanitarian in theory,” she warned, “is the terrorist in action.”

The first Bush administration, by staging a humanitarian war that killed 100,000 Iraqi conscripts on the battlefield and then killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children through an altruistic post-war embargo, cultivated the seeds that were harvested at the WTC five years ago. One shudders to think of the crop being sown by the incumbent Bush regime as it pursues humanitarian terrorism throughout the Middle East – but Disaster Capitalists are well-positioned to profit when that harvest comes in, as it will.

And those at the upper echelons of the Power Elite are always looking abroad for new fields to plow.

On August 5 of 2005, notes Naomi Klein, the Bush administration “created the office of the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, headed by Carlos Pascual, the former ambassador to Ukraine. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate `post-conflict' plans for up to 25 countries that are not, as yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations on different countries `at the same time,' each lasting `five to seven years.'”

“Fittingly,” continues Klein, “a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction. Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and drawing up plans to pick up the pieces” -- and then picking up those pieces in the slowest and most expensive way possible, the better to exploit the “cost-plus” billing arrangements most contractors enjoy.

In any corporatist system – call it “corporate socialism,” “corporate welfare,” or its correct name, fascism – those wired in to the State enjoy the best of all possible worlds. Their costs are subsidized, their losses are socialized, and their profits are privatized.

Disaster Capitalists have refined that formula in at least one important way. To the extent they're on board with the “global democratic revolution,” their business is getting into other people's business, and making other people angry enough to lash out at our country. So when we eventually catch the hell our oligarchs have been throwing at others, it will be the overworked, underpaid, tax-paying serfs who get the worst of it, just like on 9-11.

5 comments:

Absolutely, Will. I cannot agree with your synopsis more. "Disaster capitalist" is an apropos term indeed for a corporatist who thrives only or mostly on State (or rather taxpayer) customers. It's an oxymoron.

“They often have generous holiday and vacation schedules, flexible hours, training options, incentive awards, flexible spending accounts, and a more relaxed pace of work than private-sector workers.”

I'm well versed in the government work ethic and private sector counterpoint and that's so accurate! Especially the "more relaxed pace" aspect. It's easy to see why as the private sector has to produce a product that satisfies a need or want in order to obtain their revenue and it has to do it the most efficient and cost effective way possible to maximize their revenue stream in order to profit.

Government has no such concerns since it forcefully extracts it's revenue and therefore will always "make money" regardless of how inefficient the operation in question. Of course, you and the fine folks at JBS and TNA know all this and have expressed it in exquisite detail over the years.

A few side notes, if you will. A [i][/i] type of "unofficial" tag is often used in forum environments instead of standard HTML tags to limit the allowable tags by the administrator. Instead of filtering out ALL standard HTML tags that they wish not to allow, they can simply filter in, or allow only those tags. Less programming...

Anyway, here's the standard HTML:

<i>Nomenklatura</i> = Nomenklatura

...and so on for other tags.

Speaking of the "Imperial suburbs" I've long called Fairfax county "Fairyfax" for for another reason, but the portrait you paint of those Northern Virginia couunties is quite accurate. If they broke away and became a political appendage of DC, more power to 'em and good riddance.

Lastly, not to be a picker of nits, but you missed an albeit minor detail; that is the other side of the Imperial metro, as Montgomery and Howard counties are part of Mary's land. ;)

could not agree with you more. i often wonder how we in the military can repeatedly get pay raises being that our govt is broke. well, that's really a dumb question as i know the answer...no one is doing the math to tabulate the costs. it's all gonna come back and bite us.

in the military we get paid leave. i don't think the private sector does that, but then again, in the private sector i don't think you can get yanked off your leave at any time. :-O but should our leave be paid leave? i want to reluctantly say no.

are we overpaid in the military? i tend to think so. i'll get back to that in a moment. remember how folks used to bicker how lower income military used to be on welfare? don't hear those complaints anymore (i think there's more welfare now and the mostly tax exempt deployments): i always wondered how some could complain about their pay. if you came in the military (which you knew did not pay a lot) married, without a house, and with a car payment, then that was your fault. i mean, that was just stupid! back to the pay remark.

i now think that with the contract violations, numerous deployments, and just the physical and emotional strain put on most of us now, that the pay is worth it. we get abused. now some of the benfit packages like free college education makes me squirm in my seat. i understand wanting to keep people in and investing in your "assets"--the service member but i feel there should be a limit on it. i mean the tax payer is being forced to pay for this. some parts of this just don't sit right with me. pay raises? i still disagree with them. our govt needs to be saving money.

pensions. i must agree with boston t. party who once said that the only federal employees who should get a pension are those in the military who get wounded or get hurt because of their jobs (and some of what we do will mess you up real bad--jumping out of airplanes). as for the rest, i don't think it should happen. i mean, why do the congressmen, senators, the president, and everyone else get a pension...and i mean a huge pension?! it ain't right. taxpayers should not fund a former federal employee for life unless they sustained some job related injury.

another thing you are on point is with getting rid of federal employees. you can't simply fire them. stupid. now the military can move fast when it wants to, but in the civil service it seems that when folks screw up, that they must do so for years before they are let go unless they are a political appointee.

i once spoke to a peer and wanted out and to pursue the fbi or secret service. yes, i tried to dissuade this person and told her "to seriously pray on it cuz if it's not God's purpose for you, you're gonna get involved in something where (and i paraphrase it) you will get in over your head and probably 'fall away'." that's not how i said it, but it was my underlying message. this person would just smile and try to change the subject. i hate to see a fellow Christian go this route. another thing.

dealing with all the perks and benfits. was talking to the same person who wanted to get out. i said "you may want to make sure that you resign your commission or else they will call you back. and the circumstances won't be so good. if not, you might as well finish the last 3 years of your obligation." i got a vehement NO out of that! i don't get it. what was this person hanging on to if he/she no longer desired to be in the military?

got a friend in france who keeps me abreast of the socialism there. seems that the in thing is to get a govt job...hard to fire and the benefits package. but just as bad are those who choose to stay unemployed. these folk continue to get a check for not working. the problem she explained, and it should be obvious, is that the number of folks working is slowly approaching the number of folks who do not work. then what you'll get is higher taxes on the employed. in the end, the majority of folks in france will either be unemployed or govt employees, in both cases the same group of people, the private sector, will have to support both! now that's unsustainable development! i hate to see it when even taxing the private sector 100% will not support the govt and the unemployed.

about the mercs. yeah, blackwater and the like...they're mercs. why these folks even get these high paying contracts is beyond me. i think i've said it before, but will repeat it again for those who may read this. i met a SOCSMG guy in iraq, who said he got out as a junior enlisted nco, and a few weeks later was with socsmg making over $180.000 a year.....doing the exact same thing a private does. some of the demolition contractors i met were making over $200k a year. ok, now i'll buy into the demo guys getting paid that much b/c by coming to iraq they got paid a little more (they made a lot to begin with). but the mercs? i don't think our country can sustain the borrowing of money to pay for both iraq and afghanistan. why do so few see this?

i hate to say it, but things are going to get worse, and govt employees will follow their paycheck. laws be cursed! the paycheck is more important.

Your scientists just recently chipped me out of a glacier, as you know. I was using crushed berries to decorate the walls of my cave when I was quick-frozen. Your technology confuses and frightens me; whenever I see a webcam I'm sure it will steal my soul, and I run away screaming.

The geography errors I can't blame on my Cro-Magnon aversion to technology; they're the result of simple sloppiness, I'm afraid, and will be duly corrected.

Rick, isn't it incredibly tragic that we've reached the point where it's necessary to advise Christians to get or stay out of the employ of the federal government?

And rick got it right when he says the US is bankrupt. Not to worry tho. No need to fire anyone. Their checks will just stop coming as they did to the military in the Former Soviet Union. Now would be a good time to start planning for that, rick.

And those at the upper echelons of the Power Elite are always looking abroad for new fields to plow.

Who's gonna pay for the gas to keep the tractors running?

Fooling around in other peoples' affairs costs a lot of money, doesn't it...and creates new enemies daily.

i like that name. :-). if you are a woman, your nephews and nieces would not see the irony in it all. :-)

anyways, thanks for the tips. i am planning for "that day", but right now i know the Lord wants me to stay in for a while. i was thinking of getting out...and resigning my commission and saying to heck with the benefits, but then something happened and i knew God (whose son is Jesus Christ) was behind it. there is still more for me yet to learn. still scares a me bit to listen to my peers and teachers talk about america as being a democracy, spreading democracy, and the like. our country seems to be pitching money out of a wheel barrel (spl?) to any country that requests help...or will get help whether or not they like it. one thing really got me. made me a bit angry.

will,

yeah, i was sincerely trying to help the person. i knew something she did not know and was trying to get her to "do the basics" and pray on the thing knowing that God would do the rest. she wouldn't listen. i have a relative in a federal agency. this person is Christian. when he/she hit a certain mark, he/she nearly got out because of what he/she saw going on. he/she once recounted to me what happens when you "first show up". he/she said that it you go in for an interivew and the boss talks to you....then you get an opportunity to respond to what you just heard. now, basically it's like this: "this is what we do, and this is how we do it. so tell me, do you agree with this?" now, this is not what's said, but it's the underlining message. if you don't make your stand there, taking the ethical stand later on will not be easy. my relative said that if you tell them where you stand as a Christian (and what you believe), eyes open, and that supervisor now knows where you stand (adn knows what you will not tolerate). knowing the person i was talking to, i strongly felt that she would "play the game" and eventually morph into dorian gray if she joined up before praying on it. maybe i'm wrong, but i don't think so. power corrupts. especially those of weak faith.

yeah. i would not necessarilly tell a Christian stay out of the federal govt (i think that's not what you're really saying, but this...), but i would surely tell them to pray on it, cuz if God did not tell you to go in, "God help you trying to get out."